Entries in Anthill
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Last weekend I went to the computer and video game expo Gamex in Kista. It's Sweden's first real gaming expo, this being their second year.

It was great fun to help out my friends in the crew of Svampriket.se, but most interesting was checking out the indie presence.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Paradox Interactive, game developer and publisher of titles such as Magicka, dedicating most of their floor space to indie games they were not actually publishing themselves.

I got to talk with Coffestain Studios, developers of Sanctum, They've really focused on marketing and have tried all sorts of tricks including having Totalbiscuit and the Yogscast play their game and promoting it on Rock Paper Shotgun. I wish I could've had more time to talk marketing and project management with them, they really seem to know what they're doing!

Gotland University was also providing great support to their students by displaying their games on custom-made arcade cabinets, complete with custom controllers.

Walkabout from Lucid Dreams was also on display, a Lemmings-esque game where the player controls gravity by rotating the iPad. A saw an early prototype of this game last year and it was one of my sources of inspiration for the Gravity Spin concept. I got to talk to them a bit about the challenges of implementing such gameplay. Their game seems to be coming along well and I absolutely love their art style.

Fellow Gothenburgians Image & Form were there, showing off their neat new iOS game AntHill, a favorite with the Svampriket-crew. We even made a video about it!

Chalmers was present too but with general information only, no game focus or anything. Maybe someone should try convincing them to show off some student games next year? ;)

I thought last year's expo was great but this one was certainly an improvement. More exclusive titles from the big publishers but also more room for smaller developers. I should really try going to Gamescom in Cologne next year, which seems to be the closest international games expo.